Sweeney Todd - Star-cross'd

Chapter II ☾

*NOTE: The above song is the protagonist's theme; it always plays within my mind when I think of my character, Lola. So, this is her song. :)*

~*~

"oh, the body—its hungers, needs, and limitations. you look at somebody and you realise that they're in there, inside there, somewhere; and how will you ever reach them, understand them?" ~ Richard Siken.

"Come in," Mrs Lovett coaxed. "Nothin' to be afraid of, love."

Sweeney perused the dilapidated premises with sorrowful eyes. The room had been far from maintained in his absence. It appeared as though it truly housed tortured spirits, rather than all of the mirthful memories he had made within it with his beautiful Lucy and baby Johanna.

When his eyes locked with the baker's, she offered him a charming smirk and strode over to the other side of the room. He was certain that his eyes had betrayed his anguish, but simply found himself incapable of concealing it; the heedful cultivation of his emotional graveyard threatened to shatter entirely with the first few steps he took entering the rather capacious room. Fifteen years of practised illiberal discipline - for the purpose of mastering the art that was masking one's emotions - served him nought at this moment. And his resolve shattered altogether when he came to stand before his baby daughter's crib—tainted with the effects of time and neglect. The cloth draped over it emanated the bitter smell of aged linen. It was rough and crisp beneath his fingertips as he lifted it in slow agony, heart sinking at the sight of baby Jo's little dolly. He felt the all-too-familiar sensation of his throat being gripped painfully by the ensuing threat of tears.

"When they came for the girl, I hid them," Mrs Lovett's voice forced him from his trance. "Could've sold them, but I didn't."

The barber turned at her statement, coming to kneel before her as she rid the box in her pale hands of any remaining dust. His heart leapt at the sight of the intricately-carved object, fuelled by his knowledge of what it contained—his straight razors. His fingers tingled beneath the pleasant weight of said object when the baker passed it to him. With bated breath, he made slow work of opening the case; eyes reflecting the ethereal glint the razors within released beneath the vague sunlight as he stared down at them in nothing short of awe.

His sentiments were evidently shared by the woman kneeling before him. "Those 'andles is chased silver, ain't they?"

"Silver..." he echoed with a ghost of a smile. "Yes."

She watched his nimble fingers delicately stroke the glimmering surfaces, as though he thought them fragile. The gesture was one of pure adoration and worship, making her feel as though she was imposing. Though, in spite of this, it brought forth the myriad of fantasies she had allowed herself to indulge in consisting of those very same fingers to the forefront of her preoccupied mind. She could hardly restrain her sinful thoughts; what with the way that the warmth of his body bled through his clothing and pulsed around her. Her persistent arousal had, however, gone almost entirely unnoticed by him as he gently retrieved a single razor from its velvet enclosure.

"These are my friends," he began to sing softly, affectionately. "See how they glisten. See this one shine, how he smiles in the light, my friend! My faithful friend... Speak to me, friend; whisper. I'll listen. I know, I know you've been locked out of sight all these years like me, my friend! Well, I've come home to find you waiting! Home... and we're together. And we'll do wonders, won't we?"

Mrs Lovett made her desire for the barber known when she joined him in his serenading of his 'friends.' Her words exuded her unrequited infatuation with the man audaciously. There was a brief stretch of silence when their respective singing ceased;